Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will allow local authorities to retain any surplus funding allocated for the business support grant to distribute further grants to local businesses that did not qualify under that scheme’s initial criteria.

The Department is in regular contact with local government to understand how the Small Business Grant Fund and the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant Fund are rolling out, as well as the impact they are having on businesses. The main priority of the Government is that funding can get out to eligible businesses as quickly as possible.

On 1 May 2020, the Business Secretary announced the Local Authority Discretionary Grants Fund, which is aimed at small businesses with ongoing fixed property-related costs - not linked to the business rates system. Where local authorities have surplus funding from their original allocations, they can use up to 5% of their allocation to provide these discretionary grants. Local authorities that have used, or expect to use, all of their allocation will receive an additional 5% to meet the cost of these discretionary grants.